Varsity board discusses planning

LAHORE: The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) recently organised its 19th Advisory Board Meeting of Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering (SBASSE) with the aim to discuss strategic planning for the next 10 years. Discussions on big data, machine learning, and cloud computing were also held during the meeting.

The meeting began with Vice-Chancellor, LUMS, Dr Arshad Ahmad, opening the event and sharing an update on the latest developments at the university. This was followed by presentations by Ms Rabia Ahmad, Director Admissions, Mr Mirza Zunair Zafar, CFO/Director Finance, and Ms Nuzhat Kamran, Director, Office of Advancement for their respective departments.

Later on, Dr Shahid Masud, Dean SBASSE, presented the School’s updates as well as a response to the last year’s Advisory Board Report. The Department Chairs of SBASSE further shared the vision, status and strategy of the departments, their research and achievements of their respective faculty members and students.

The Advisory Board members included Prof James Wescoat JR (Chairperson Advisory Board SBASSE and MIT, USA), Prof Sally Benson (Stanford University, USA), Prof Khalid Aziz (Stanford University, USA), Prof Muhammad Hamid Zaman (Boston University, USA), Prof Michael Pecht (University of Maryland, USA), Dr Hassan Ahmed (CEO, Sonus Networks, USA), Dr Dara Entekhabi (MIT, USA), Dr Khaled Letaief (Hong Kong University of Science and Technology), Dr Sarfraz Khurshid (University of Texas, USA) and Dr Khurram Afridi (Cornell University, USA).

Prof James Wescoat led the session, ‘Planning for the next 10 years’. Later on, the convener of the committee, Dr Basit Yameen, presented the first report of the strategic planning committee. Similarly, the Department Chair of the Chemistry and Chemical Engineering department, Dr Yameen and the Dean, respectively, shared updates on the Chemical and Civil Engineering Programmes.

Dr Muhammad Abu Bakar, Director, Centre for Water Informatics and Technology gave an update on the Centre’s activities and its future direction. Likewise, Dr Naveed Arshad, Associate Professor, Department of Computer Science presented the vision, status, funding resources and future strategy of the new Centre of Energy. Additionally, Associate Professor and Chair, Department of Biology, Dr Aziz Mithani presented the updates on last year’s workshop on Infectious Diseases to the Advisory Board.

The Advisory Board Members also met with the Deans of each School as well as with the faculty, students and staff to get a sense of the opportunities and challenges facing the School. Prof David B Kaplan delivered the Salam Memorial Lecture on “The Peculiar Story of Chirality”.

Scholars of PhD and MS students of SBASSE presented posters of their ongoing research in the areas of Biology, Computer Science, Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Mathematics, Electrical Engineering and Physics.